Omelette Cha Om is a type of Thai-fried egg omelette with 'cha om' vegetable. The vegetable is quite unpleasant when uncooked, it has a sulfurous smell similar to the smell of pond weed. Once cooked, though, the bad smell disappears leaving a much more mild flavour. Cha om is also used with curry soup, and eaten as a side vegetable either fresh or boiled by Thai people.
Note, this omelette is very spicy and contains a lot of chillis, you can reduce the chilli quantity if you prefer.

Ingredient for 2 people
100 gms. Cha-Om vegetable. (use only the soft top of the shoots)
3 Eggs.
2 Red Chillies.
1 Garlic Clove.
1/2 Teaspoons white ground pepper.
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce (Omit for vegetarian).
1 Teaspoon Light Soya Sauce.
3 Tablespoons Oil.

Preparation
1. Break the egg put in a bowl.
2. Chop the Cha-Om vegetable to 4 cm lengths and add to the bowl.
3. Cut the chillies int 2 cm lengths, and add them, together with the fish sauce, light soya sauce, and pepper.
4. Mix the ingredients well.
5. Chop of garlic clove into small pieces.
6. Add the oil in a heated frying pan wait until it is hot add the garlic and fry for a few seconds.
7. Add the egg mixture.
8. Fry for 2 minutes, turn it over, fry for a further two minutes.

Serve with
Hot rice
Spicy sauce, e.g. chopped chilli and fish sauce mix.

If you think an omelette should taste of eggs, this recipe is a wake-up call. It has a strong meaty flavour with a slight spicy after-taste that is very different from a traditional 'eggy' omelette. Best of all, it's a very easy dish to make. A good way to serve this omelette is to cut it into squares, so that it can be shared between several people as a side dish.

Ingredients for 2 People
3 Large Eggs
75 gms Pork Mince
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
10 gms Coriander Leaves
10 gms Spring Onion (approx 1)
2 Big Red Chillies
100 ml Oil
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper

Preparation
1. Chop the coriander, spring onion and chillies.
2. Whip the eggs in a mixing bowl.
3. Add the pork mince, light soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, spring onion, coriander, and pepper. Mix thoroughly.
4. Put oil into frying pan and preheat the oil.
5. Fry the eggs mix for 1 minute.
6. Turn the omelette over and fry the other side for a minute.
7. The omelette should be cooked and golden brown. To make sure its cooked squeeze it, and no liquid should come out.

Serve With
Salad Vegetable
Hot Rice
Sweet Chilli Sauce

A tasty prawn & garlic omelette garnished with fried prawns. This is not a spicy dish, so if you're not a fan of spicy food then this is suitable for you. You will need chicken stock powder for this, it's similar to a chicken stock cube but in a powder form that can be mixed with the egg.

Ingredients for 2 People
2 Eggs
2 Cloves Garlic
4 Prawns (2 for omelette and 2 for garnish)
1 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/4 Teaspoon Chicken Stock Powder
1 Teaspoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1/4 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Clean 2 of the prawns, cut them down the back and remove the black thread gut. Remove all the shell and chop them into a fine mince.
2. Whip the eggs with chicken powder, white pepper, fish sauce, and chopped coriander leaves.
3. Add the shrimp mince to the whipped eggs.
4. Heat the oil in a frying pan until hot, peel and chop the garlic finely and fry until the smell is released (appex 20 seconds), add the egg mixture for 1 minute on each side, then remove it and set it to one side.
5. Fry the two remaining prawns in the pan for a minute each side and use to garnish the omelette. I prefer to fry the prawn garnish in their shells, because they look better, but if you prefer you can de-shell them before frying.

Serves With
Hot Thai Fragrant Rice

A favorite of my younger brother and sister. These parcels are fried and crispy wonton pastry with a quails egg inside and are eaten with a sweet chillie sauce. The wonton skins you can buy in packets from Asian grocers. Wontons are a type of pastry treated to avoid soaking up oil when frying.

Ingredients
12 Quail Eggs
12 Wonton Skins
Wood Skewers
Oil for deep fry

Preparation
1. Boil the quail eggs in water for 8 minutes.
2. Remove the shells and dry them.
3. Heat oil in a deep fat fryer to 170 degrees celsius.
4. Wrap each egg up in wonton skins (as in the photograph below) and skewer onto wooden sticks. I typically put 4 of them onto each stick.
5. Deep fry in the hot oil for 2 minutes.

Serve With
Lettuce
Cucumber
Tomato
Sweet Chicken Sauce

We eat these the same way you eat chips (french fried), they are simply Taro cut into fine strips and deep fried in hot oil.
The best Taro to use is the older purple roots if you can get them, here I've used younger Taro. Serve them salted with vinegar just as you would potato chips.

Ingredients
200 gms Old Taro
1 Teaspoon Limestone Water
200 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Peel the taro and clean. Slice into thin thin strips, far thinner than fries. Soak in limestone water & regular water for 15 minutes. This will make them crispy.
2. Drain the taro and shake dry. Dust with cassava starch.
3. Heat oil to 190 degrees celsius, then deep fry the taro until brown, drain on kitchen paper.

A very simple omelette idea. In Thailand we have many different types of aubergine, the larger black one is best sliced thin and fried, making an omelette out of it is a good way to eat it.

Ingredients
50 gms Large Black Aubergine
2 Eggs
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Clean and slice the aubergine thinly.
2. Heat a frying pan with a little oil.
3. Fry the aubergine for 20 seconds each side.
4. Whip the eggs, add the fish sauce and pepper. It it not necessary to add salt, the fish sauce is already salty.
5. Pour the whipped eggs over the aubergine and fry them like an omelette.
6. Serve, I told you this was simple!

This is a filled pancake that was popular in the Japanese restaurant that I worked in. It is a filled cheese pancake with beansprouts, mushrooms and flavourings, the cheese melts as the pancake is cooked and glues the edges of the pancake together!

Ingredients
150 gms Flour
250 ml Milk
1 Egg
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
50 gms Beansprouts
50 gms Shitake Mushrooms (and Other Flavour Mushrooms)
20 gms Spring Onions
50 gms Grated Cheese
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
Butter ( or Oil for Frying )

Preparation
1. Mix the flour with the egg and milk, add salt and sugar and mix to form a smooth pancake mix.
2. Add a little butter to a frying pan, melt it, then pour in some pancake mixture.
3. I'm sure you've made pancakes before, for this recipe you need nice even round pancakes, browned on one side only.
4. Make an even number of them, I made 6 with this mix, and stack them on a side plate.
5. Slice the shitake mushrooms, slice the spring onions and fry together with the beansprouts to just soften the vegetables. Set aside in a plate.
6. Add a little more butter to the frying pan, place one of the pancakes in the pan browned side up. The unbrowned side should face down, we will cook this side now.
7. Spoon some of the filling into the centre of the pancake and sprinkle grated cheese over it. Lay another pancake on the top - this one brown side down (so that cooked sides of the pancake face inwards).
8. Fry the pancake until brown, press down the edges to seal in the filling.
9. Turn it over and fry the otherside until brown.
10. Serve is sliced like a pizza.

You've seen variations of these fried parcels before, and you've probably eaten lots of spring rolls before. These are much better, a much stronger flavour comes from the black Chinese dried mushrooms (you can see these in the back of the photograph).

Ingredients
Spring Roll Papers
50 gms Black Chinese Mushrooms
100 gms Shrimp
5 Bird Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
5 gms Kra Prow Basil Leaves (Thai Basil)
1 Teaspoon Oyster Sauce
1 Teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
Pinch of Sugar
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Soak the dried black mushrooms for 30 minute to 1 hour.
2. Chop the mushrooms and shrimp to a very coarse mince.
3. Slice the garlic and chillies together, fry in the oil for a few seconds, add the shrimp, mushrooms, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, basil leaves and stir fry for a minute, then set aside on a plate to cool.
4. Spoon the mixture onto spring roll leaves, roll up the edges and tuck in the sides. Brush the edge of the spring roll paper with egg to seal it.
5. Heat oil to 180 degrees celsius and deep fry the spring rolls until crispy. Drain on paper and serve.

This is a side dish of quails eggs in a spicy sugar-caramel sauce. In Thailand we normally use larger duck or even chicken eggs, but for the best ratio of sauce to egg the smaller quails eggs are perfect.

Ingredients for 2 People
7 Quail Eggs
Oil for Frying
3 Red Chillis
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Onion
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Boil the eggs for 5 minutes, remove them and place in cold water. Peel off the shell and cut in half.
2. Put oil in the frying pan and fry the quail egg halves until they are brown, remove and put on the serving plate.
3. Slice the chilli and the garlic and put in frying pan with 1 tablespoon oil, fry for a minute to release the flavours.
4. Turn the heat to medium, add the light soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and vinegar and fry until the sugar caramelizes and the sauce thickens and becomes brown.
5. Pour the sauce over the eggs.
6. Add the raw chopped onion over the eggs, together with the chopped coriander leaves.

Serve With
Cucumber
Tomato
Salad
Fragrant rice

Mu means pork, Gop means crunchy and as you'd expect the main part of this dish is the crunchy pork. It is normal to use thick strips of bacon, or similar cuts of pork with the skin still present. However not everyone likes the crunchy skin, so you may prefer to remove it. The pork can be prepared ahead of time.

Ingredient for 2 people
150 gms Fatty Pork
200 ml Water
1 Teaspoon Salt
100 gms Broccoli
4 Red Chillies
2 Garlic Clove
1 Tablespoon Light Soya Sauce
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation of Crunchy Pork
1. Add the salt to the water and bring to the boil.
2. Add the pork to the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Take it off the heat and leave the pork to dry. You can prick the pork all over with a fork, it will help to make it crunchier.
4. Once it is dry, deep fry in hot oil.
6. The finished pork should be very very crunchy.

Preparation
1. Chop the garlic and fry it in a hot frying pan for a few seconds to release the garlic fragrance.
2. Chop the crunchy pork into bite sized strips, and put it in the frying pan with the garlic.
3. Add light soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar, and stir fry it for 1 minute.
4. Slice the red chilles in halves and the broccoli into florets and add those to the stir fry.
5. Fry for a few minutes longer, to just lightly cook the broccoli.
6. Serve with hot fragrant rice and optionally, the chilli sauce below.

Preparation for Chilli Sauce
1. Chop a red chilli finely, and chop a garlic clove finely.
2. Put those in a bowl together with a single slice of lemon.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of fish sauce.
4. Thats it, a spicy chilli sauce - this is a common condiment, if the dish isn't spicy enough, you can add a teaspoon or two to your rice.

Cakes drizzled in chocolate? No! Scotch eggs? No. These are eggs, wrapped in a coating made largely from carrots and breadcrumbs, drizzled in a savoury sauce.

Ingredients
Quail Eggs
150 gms Chopped Carrot
100 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Salt
Bread Crumbs
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Mix the flour, eggs and carrot together, place in blender and blend until smooth.
2. Cover each egg with the mixture using two teaspoons to spread the mixture over the eggs.
3. Cover with breadcrumbs. Then deep fry in 180 degree oil until brown.

Ingredients for Dark Sauce
2 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Corn Starch
4-5 Tablespoons Water

Preparation
1. Mix everything together.
2. Warm over a low heat to cook through the starch and thicken the sauce.